Curfew imposed as troops topple Honduras president

Leaders from across Latin America were meeting today in response to the political crisis in Honduras after clashes between the military and protesters.

There have been reports of shots being fired after hundreds of supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya set up barricades in the capital Tegucigalpa and blocked roads to the presidential palace.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is heading a meeting of regional leaders in neighbouring Nicaragua today after threatening military intervention to reinstate his Left-wing ally. It is the first military overthrow of a Central American government in 16 years and risks destabilising the entire region.

Mr Zelaya, who has been in power since 2006, was ousted in a coup after he defied the judiciary and parliament by seeking constitutional changes that would have allowed him to seek re-election beyond a fixed four-year term. Roberto Micheletti has been installed as interim president before elections in November. His first action was to announce a curfew.

The country's supreme court said it had ordered the army to remove the president. Mr Micheletti, the constitutional second in line to the presidency, was quickly sworn in by parliament.

President Barack Obama, the European Union and other foreign governments have also backed Mr Zelaya, who was taken by troops from the presidential palace and flown to Costa Rica.

In Tegucigalpa, groups of men, holding metal pipes and their faces covered with T-shirts, threw rocks and taunted troops at the palace.

"For the country to have peace in the future, there will have to be deaths, injuries. We are willing to fight to the death," said Cristhian Rodriguez, a 24-year-old plumber.